This is a link to a video showing part of a report on a 3 month investigation KNBC (Los Angeles NBC affiliate) did on Jiffy Lube. How this place stays in business is a mystery to me. This is the second time in as many years that a news agency has done a sting on Jiffy Lube. In the previous investigation, the "customer" (a reporter wearing a hidden camera and microphone) brought his vehicle in for just an oil change. After doing a cursory inspection of other components of the vehicle, several "necessary repairs" were found and suggested to the customer by the Jiffy Lube mechanic. What the mechanic didn't know was, prior to being brought in for the oil change, the vehicle had been given a complete overhaul and had just had it's radiator flushed, trans fluid changed, and air filter changed. What were the recommended repairs by the Jiffy Lube mechanic? Trans fluid change, radiator flush, and new air filter.

As you will see in this latest sting, 9 Jiffy Lube locations were investigated. 5 of them were caught ripping off it's customers. This time by charging for repairs that were never performed. I especially like the part of the video where the District Manager lies about his identity.

I hate jiffy lube. couple years ago. I took my car there for an oil change. It was winter and i diddnt feel like doing it myself. So long story short. They put in 20w truck oil and charged me for it. My car is a 3.1l v6. It needs 5w30... So I told them to drain it and put the correct oil in. As im not paying for something I diddnt need. He told me that it was on my bill and it was what I ordered. Even thou I never made such a purchase. So after 20 mins of arguing I had to pay for them to put the correct oil in the car.

Then when I got home, I heard a clink when I shut my car off. The oil filter was the wrong size and proceeded to fall off, spilling all the oil. I called them and told them I want my car towed and repaired at their cost. They refused. So i had to spend ANOTHER 20 dollars and do the oil myself. And to this day Ive never received an apology nor my money back for their fuck up.

Quoting Cadet57 (Reply 1):I hate jiffy lube. couple years ago. I took my car there for an oil change. It was winter and i diddnt feel like doing it myself. So long story short. They put in 20w truck oil and charged me for it. My car is a 3.1l v6. It needs 5w30... So I told them to drain it and put the correct oil in. As im not paying for something I diddnt need. He told me that it was on my bill and it was what I ordered. Even thou I never made such a purchase. So after 20 mins of arguing I had to pay for them to put the correct oil in the car.

Then when I got home, I heard a clink when I shut my car off. The oil filter was the wrong size and proceeded to fall off, spilling all the oil. I called them and told them I want my car towed and repaired at their cost. They refused. So i had to spend ANOTHER 20 dollars and do the oil myself. And to this day Ive never received an apology nor my money back for their fuck up.

The last time I visited Jiffy Lube was in 1997. The f'ing idiot who put the drain plug back in stripped the threads. So they put some king of universal plug in the oil pan, and I drove away, unaware that they had just f'ed up my car.

Next time I took the car into the dealer for some warranty work, they showed me what they did. I drove back to JL, and demanded they pay for a new oil pan. Since it had been 3 months since the "deed," they refused. I wrote to complain to JLHQ, but they blew me off.

Now that you mentioned it, that is a pretty comical name. Yeah, they're a Nationwide chain here in the U.S. (maybe Canada, too, not sure). They are a drive-in facility that specializes in oil changes but they perform other vehicle maintenance services (such as those named) as well. Their "hook" is a fairly fast oil change at a reasonable price but they always try to up sell the customer into having other repairs performed and the cost for those repairs are hugely inflated (such as $30 to change an air filter).

I am sure you could. The first time Jiffy Lube was investigated, the news agency was able to track down a few former employees who weren't the least bit hesitant to share some stories. One of which being the constant pressure they were under by management to up sell customers, whether the work was necessary or not. Yet this place remains in business. Amazing.

One of our most despised vehicles to work on were Mazda MPV minivans. They had two skidplates to remove with a bazillion bolts each. One employee was fired at another location after it was discovered that he would remove the skidplates and not reattach them. They later found a stash of about 40 of them behind one of the oil storage tanks.

One time we received a batch of oil filters which were labeled incorrectly. The error wasn't detected until four cars had blown them on the road that day.

We've had cars that received oil showers (technician hitting the oil gun with his leg by accident with the nozzle open), one that started in gear and plowed into a closed bay door, cars driven INTO the pit, and my personal favorite: a car that was sitting in the bay when the overhead garage door opener spontanously detached itself from the ceiling and landed on the car.

In Jiffy Lube's defense, most of their stores are franchised. Yes, Jiffy Lube's upper management needs to be made aware of these problems (and revoke the franchise if necessary), but if the technicians are being instructed to charge for services and not perform them, they need to go to the franchise owner about that. Unfortunately, it seemed that the franchise owners gained more and more power over their corporation every day and I kind of think they had the home Jiffy Lube office bent over a barrel...

When I was a tech, we were instructed to try up-sell, but not to lie. We wanted to change your differential fluids, but if they were outside the suggested mileage, we wouldn't lie. We always brought out the air filter so you could see it and decide for yourself if it needed replacing.

I've noticed that as Jiffy Lube adds more and more additional services, the "quick" part of the oil change has been disappearing. I've often thought about opening up my own fast lube station so I could focus more on the basics ... fast, efficient (and honest) service. If you need your transmission fluid changed, you shouldn't take it to a place that is trying to crank out a car in 20 minutes.

Quoting MastaHanky (Reply 16):When I was a tech, we were instructed to try up-sell, but not to lie. We wanted to change your differential fluids, but if they were outside the suggested mileage, we wouldn't lie. We always brought out the air filter so you could see it and decide for yourself if it needed
replacing.

When I worked for Tune-Up Masters and Mark C. Bloome awhile back,
we got told the same thing.Show the bad product to the customer
whenever possible and don't lie,don't fabricate a problem.

Quoting PSA53 (Reply 17):And all the stores were company owned which was nice.Granatelli took a lot pride in those stores.

I wondered about that. I was a loyal customer going back to the 70's until I moved away from where they had shops. The one time the shop couldn't fix my problem, it turned out to be an intermittent issue with the fuel pump. The district supervisor came out to do the test drive and diagnostic himself after the shop had two attempts at it, and then he comp'd the repair (I'd been a customer for maybe a dozen years at that point).

I worked at one years ago. When we would talk to the customer, we would say that the manufacturer recommends that the "insert extra here" be changed every XX,XXX miles. We used the lower end of the spectrum on the manufacturers recommendations. All of the upsells I did, as far as I know, were performed. The owner of our stores would send out forms to people, have them use us, and tell them how they felt about our performance. Towards the end of me working there, they were pretty paranoid about damage claims, and had us doing a lot more checks to cover our ass. Technically, if we added power steering fluid, but we said that it was full instead of topped off, we could be held liable if something were to happen to the power steering system. We had to document every leak, etc.

Quoting Go3Team (Reply 19): Technically, if we added power steering fluid, but we said that it was full instead of topped off, we could be held liable if something were to happen to the power steering system.

Isn't it amazing that we had to learn a whole new language,so we weren't
liable.Any human resources office for a company, always had fun with this
one, as to what you can and cannot say to an applicant.Even asking
them if they had a car to/from the job was incorrect.
Bunch of BS.

I heard quite a horror story last week on another forum. The owner of a 2006 Range Rover had brought it into a quick-oil-change place - not named, but it could very well have been a Jiffy Lube - and the technician made some mistake, something to do with a gasket, that ended up destroying the Range Rover's motor. And a new motor for a Range Rover costs more than some new cars.

What would ever stop it? Thanks in part to tort reform, you can rarely take down the whole business anymore. Even Enron went down simply because they had run out of cash, not because the state of California or anybody else they screwed over had been able to bring them down.

Quoting PSA53 (Reply 20):Even asking them if they had a car to/from the job was incorrect.

Why not just ask if they have transportation? Is it unacceptable to carpool or ride a bike these days?

Quoting PSA53 (Reply 20):.Any human resources office for a company, always had fun with this one, as to what you can and cannot say to an applicant.Even asking them if they had a car to/from the job was incorrect.

You can ask the applicant if he or she has a valid driver's license, however, if the job may involve use of a company vehicle.